SPEAKER_01 0:57

Because I am so transparent, I told you all the software. If you never want to talk to me, you could run off and go do everything I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Welcome to Acting Smarter Now. I am Lydia Nicole, actress, producer, and your acting career coach, dedicated to helping you cut through the noise, own your craft, and transform your career from undiscovered to unstoppable. I have a question for you today. What if I told you that you are sitting on a gold mine you don't even know you have? The only thing you're missing is a system. Well, today you are in for a treat because I have Alyssa Pitt, funnel queen. This woman is gonna show us exactly how to build that system so we can make that money. Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. So without further ado, let's go to the interview. Alyssa, you go by Calissa in the digital world. Tell us the story behind that name and how you found your way into the world of sales funnels.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

I call myself Curlissa because a lot of people would see me and they see I have curly hair. And amongst the other girls that have curly hair, the number one question I would get is like, How do you do your hair? What kind of products do you put inside your hair? So instead of keep asking answering that question over and over again, I started making content about my hair. And that's kind of how I started that content journey. And then with funnels, I started that because I used to be a social media manager after I did all the stuff for myself personally. I was able to monetize it that way. And when I was a social media manager, I needed a lot of funnels, like a lot of them. And as I was seeing people sell them, there were 2,000, 4,000, 5,000. And when they would deliver them, there was still work to do on the back end. So I decided to build my brand Fearless Funnels so that we could go ahead and build that out for people, and that even if they broke or there were other things to do, they could come back and know that we were there for them.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Okay, so my audience are actors who are hustling every day, and they probably have no idea what a sales funnel even is. Can you give us the simplest, most relatable explanation of what a funnel is and why it matters and why it matters to actors?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

For anybody that doesn't know what a funnel is, I say a funnel is the process of somebody going from not knowing you at all to becoming a loyal customer or client. And for an actor, you want as much retention as possible. You want to make sure that throughout your duration of somebody knowing you from not knowing you at all to becoming a loyal viewer, you want to make sure that that's there. So you're actually always in a funnel. And maybe since today we're filming on a Sunday, guys, since today's Sunday, you might have gone to the grocery store today. You might have your list and you know exactly what you want. But while you're going through the store, you might see the circular, it has things on sale. So now you added things on your list that you didn't even have. Now you're in the line, you see all these magazines, they want to upsell you essentially. You're always in an upselling funnel. So that's what we want to do with our clients. Like, for example, if I had an actor as a client, I would say, okay, if you know that a lot of people come through social media, they might come see you in some shows, they might know you from different things. We want to make sure that there's a lead magnet or a lot of people have the text where you can text back and forth with people just to engage in that way. That way, so when we drop a new show and we want to make sure that we get the views the first time, people are not hiring us just for okay, they're a great actor. Sometimes there's a likeness to it, and to get to that start on, we have to interact with our fans. So that's exactly how I would build a funnel for an actor.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Okay, so you just mentioned lead magnet. How would a lead magnet work for an actor? Let's say they're just trying to get, you know, they're hustling there, maybe they're getting a little job here on a TV show or they're getting a commercial, but they're not the lead on a show. How could a lead magnet help them? First, I need you to tell us what a lead magnet is, and then how can it help them?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

So a lead magnet is anything that you can give away essentially for free or low cost. That in exchange, people will give you their name, their number, and their email. Depending on what the laws are within whatever project they're working on, an easy lead magnet is for somebody to have behind the scenes content. A lot of people have either their paid content, and we won't say certain platforms, just because we don't know what people are affiliated with, but one of the them that I'm affiliated that is free is called Go Collab. So one of them you can just have this community, you don't have to charge people anything, but you can collect. So when Instagram goes down, when Facebook goes down, when YouTube goes down, when all those platforms that you do not own go down, you might have at least everybody's name, number, email. Then you can text them, you can email them, or you can have them in your own private community. So those things are more helpful because they're free, you can go build your community, and then from there, again, you have the people's information that you can do literally, you can let your talent know, like, hey, I also come with these things. So then when you do brand deals, even outside of just the regular acting, you have some more to look at.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

So what I love from what you're saying is because actors are the COs of their companies and they gotta figure out how they're making money, not just from acting jobs, but is there another form of income that they could be bringing in? And you mentioned the lead magnet to collect their emails, to collect their names, to start building their fan base. And you mentioned that all those social media platforms could be taken from them and then they have no access to that group of people that really like them. How important is it to have a website or, you know, just a place that's yours that nobody is gonna disrupt?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

It's actually really essential, and even if it's something that's not just yours, even if it's just diversifying your platforms or making sure that you have some type of central hub where the people can come to from those platforms, because let's say you do end it at Instagram and you want to send everybody to your Instagram. Again, if Instagram goes down, then that's no good. So, like Lydia was just saying, if you want to get like a funnel or a landing page for a funnel for someone like an actor, this might look like okay, we can put all of your social medias together, we can tell people about you, you can have your portfolio in your funnel. But with most funnels, we have a call to action. So with me, it's to book a call for the actor, it might be for them to be booked as well. So being able to have a streamlined, nice looking platform for everything so that we don't have to scramble. We're out and about, we're meeting people. You never know when your next break might be as an actor. So we want to have that professionally together, and in the digital age, it's a lot easier to have it as a link on your phone that you can just send out. I mean, you can literally tap phones and airdrop contacts nowadays, and having that there is very professional. If you can have exactly some of your videos that you've done previously, those are things that people want to see nowadays versus back in the day, you would have to walk around with your headshots and have everything all together. Now we can digitize these portfolios.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

You can make it so that the actors' videos, their reels, their clips, uh, their pictures, their resumes are on a digital space that they can just airdrop it to somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Correct. And we would call that more of an electronic brush kit or EPK. And once they have that EPK, they know exactly the other person in the industry is like, okay, I like this about you. You know how to work, and maybe you can get booked a little bit faster. But that's what we like about it because on that landing page itself, we would have an email pop up and it's like, would you like to know more information? Maybe join our newsletter, maybe join our text list, and this is what diversifies you from someone else because now you get to stay top of mind. You're like, oh, it's Friday. You might I do funnel Friday, so I send out emails on Fridays. We go over, okay, when Amazon went down. We let our people know because if you're on Cloudflare, it might not work anymore. So there are certain things like that that in your space it might be, oh, we have the new hottest drop with where everybody's waiting on season three to drop. Now we're here. Okay, so we just need to figure out what that is or what could bring people back for our business. You might be able, again, legally to do behind the scenes or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

I love this. I I love this conversation because most actors are waiting to be discovered. And what you're saying is, hey, let me help you build a platform or build a funnel or lead magnet and create your emails so that you're not waiting, but you are being active and hopefully you're gonna create something that people will pay you for.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yes, and if more prepared you are, the better it is. Once you have an EPK, there are brands that actually reach out to me weekly and they ask because of the audience that I've built to talk about tech platforms. It's only because I put it out there. So if you know that you're waiting on a job but you love your skincare, there are brands that are in skincare that are actually looking for content creators. It doesn't have to be big. There's actually apps that will put it together for you. There's apps like Join Brands where you can definitely check those out. I even use a couple of different platforms where once you're in an agency, they can start to match you based on what you know. And even on other platforms like Instagram, once you hit 10K, you can apply to become a creator where they'll match you with the brands. And if you look on my page, I actually have some branded content and they run ads to me. So now there's other people that get to see because I one am collaborating with them, and two, they're running ads for me. So again, if you are in your space and maybe the ads were more for something in the acting world, now you're getting more eyeballs on you. So if you have that EPK and even people come to your page, you can send it off. So there is it can come full circle, but again, it starts with being prepared.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

What I love about you, Alyssa, is that you are a go-getter. You are a go-getter, and you put yourself in rooms to grow your brand, grow your business. Can you tell us how old you are?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yes, I'm 25. I'll be 26 in June 21st, a couple months.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

All right. How long have you been doing funnels?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

So funnels, five years, but I've been doing graphics since I was eight. Both my parents are teachers by trade. So when they came together, you know, they were making sure I stayed after school and all these different programs. When I was eight, I started doing competitions on the college level, and that's kind of how I got into the graphics world, making money online and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

And what made you want to do funnels? You got this background in graphics. What made you gravitate to doing funnels?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Um, honestly, because within funnels, it's kind of like a part of it is the front end landing page, but then you have the whole back end. So now that we're in 2026, I'm glad I didn't stay on graphics because Canva would have taken my job, everybody's on Canva now, AI would have taken my job. Everybody has AI flyers, AI logos, AI everything, but still with that strategy part of funnels. If you don't know how to take that vibe-coded landing page, everybody's using lovable, which you guys can definitely use something like a lovable or reflet, which are websites that you can type in exactly what you want for your portfolio, add in your pictures, and it can go live. But a lot of people don't know how to let's say if I said I was going to deliver something to you on this landing page, they don't know how to deliver it. So that's a part of the things that we do as well. As and a lot of abandoned carts, so you didn't buy it. We remind you to buy it. The cart's closing now. We have this discount for you if you don't buy it. It's kind of like um for the anybody in the 21st century, you know, if you sign up for Timu or Amazon or Walmart and you leave anything in your cart, they're gonna make sure that you remember. As a matter of fact, they might text you every day, email you every day. That's kind of the same thing that we do. We create spam, but it's good spam because we monetize off of it.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

So I want people to know not only do you have this business, but you have been able to make it work for you in that you take vacations, you travel, you are incredible. Talk to me about having created this business and what made you go, hey, I think I want to be able to travel.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Okay, so when I started this side of my business, I joined the morning meetup specifically because I had gotten around, let's just say a five-figure grant, and I did not know what to do with it. I was 21, and my friend, who was also in my business, she just passed away. So I was looking for a support group. I was also looking for a grown-up, because I was not like a real grown-up, to tell me, okay, this is good, this is bad, this is good. So I was looking up how to make money online. I found the morning meetup. That was the first time that I was like, oh, I want to go somewhere without my family. I was like, oh, I want to go to Atlanta and see what these guys are talking about. But because and actors, pay attention. There are people that want to sponsor you. I knew what I could do. At the time, I was pushing more of the social media, more of the flyers, more of that side of things. And I was like, I'm looking for a sponsor. I just put this in the Facebook group. I found a sponsor for$500 to pay for my plane ticket. I went to Florida. I was like, okay, now that I know that people pay for marketing in that way, I just made sure that it was always in the budget. Now this year, again, actors hello, never miss a job. All you can fly past, go wild pass on Frontier. It's I bought it for$299 because it was on sale at the time. It's$3.99 now. But hear me out, after you buy that, all your flights are$15. So now when I get a job and I'm charging people between$2,000 and$5,000 for these things, why not add the$15 to go to your grand opening or to go to your event? And a lot of people that I work with, they host events or they have brick and mortar businesses. They're normally coaches, which have a lot of like summits, challenges, conferences, some like everything that you can think of. But why not show up? If I do all the online stuff, it's more of your digital real estate, but I can always come in person, which gives a better feel to the branding as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Actors don't realize that they have something valuable to offer beyond performing or coaching or workshops or masterclasses online. How can a funnel help them turn that knowledge into income?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

So anything that you know about, you can monetize. So I have another brand outside of this that I don't even talk about in the morning meetup, which is called Passenger Princess. With Passenger Princess, I'm just telling people how I make money online. And some of the ways that I actually make smaller money online, just the way I saw you drinking, I don't know what's in your cup. But I love chai, I'm a chai latte type of girl, but that's extra money. So I make my chai money using my passenger princess links, which are survey apps, checking apps, and banking apps. So I just put this together using a Linktree, which is the simplest version of a funnel you can get. Once you have your Linktree together, it has on there, okay, all your socials. And then once you get really popular on Linktree, it'll highlight the link for you.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

So tell me about it. What's it called? The princess?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Passenger princess. Because I don't drive, I ended up making this brand. Um, some of my clients were actually paying for me to come to where they are. So I realized, okay, I'm still on my laptop, I'm still making money, but I'm not the driver. There's ways to make money with the check-in app. So, for example, if you're near a Walmart, they will give you five cents for the actors. Five cents doesn't sound like a lot, but all I'm doing is giving them pretty much letting them know that I'm near the location. At scale, it pays for little tiny things like phone bills, like my chai money, like my$15 flights. So this is exactly what Passenger Princess does, and you don't have to have a business to do this.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

So, me as an actor, I could hire you and you will set me up and give me what I need.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

One of my clients started hiring me for probably two hours away from where I live. So I was taking the train a lot, which meant I was not driving. And I've been in six car accidents. So a lot of times I haven't been driving. I had to go to physical therapy, I had to do all of these things. So, with that being said, I figured out a lot of ways to make money from the car, which involved a lot of banking apps, check-in apps, and with some of the check-in apps, like Eureka, which is an app where they're kind of just selling data, if that makes sense. And some of them are actually really good companies, like Rue 21. They'll ask you before spring comes on, do you like this shirt or this shirt? And they'll give you actual dollars. It's a small amount of money. For example, the check-in apps are between 10 cent and 5 cent, but things like that add up for those of us that aren't making traditional income. I mean, I don't have money every single day to go drink tries the way I want to, or to pay phone bills or the Wi-Fi, the smaller bills around$40. And actually, fun fact, I actually did some passenger princess things today. There's an app called Rackettin, it's kind of taking the things that you're buying and using the data against it to sell back to companies. And this is already happening all the time. You hear about data hacks, data breaches. So you can take power of it, and with Racketon, they'll actually make sure that they give you money back into your account and what they call a big fact check. So today I cashed out, I went to Target and I bought a radio transmitter, and a radio transmitter can take music from your phone and put it on like an older car and put it on the radio. So I got that for free because of Rackettin. So things like that I would have spent money on, but I don't have to. So I love passenger apprentices because again, you don't have to own a business where a lot of my other clients make money by owning a business, you don't have to do this with some of the other little passenger printness things. And this is a free link that I have on TikTok, and people find it every single first and 15th because I know that with my audience, pulling it back to what we were talking about earlier. I know with my audience they want to know how to make money online. Some of them don't have businesses, some of them do. So the fact that I know that and I want to put that content out there, the same way that I did that, you can do that, or an actor can do that. If they know that they're a great actor, but their skincare is better. Tell people about your skincare routine. If you have kids, tell people about being an actor and having kids and what that's like. No matter what your life is like, somebody's wondering that. Um, and you kind of can't assume that people know everything, even within the coaching realm. When you said a little bit outside of coaching, even within the coaching realm, I don't know how to act. I actually paid an acting coach before so that she can tell me about my voice. I know I have allergies, I had asthma, I know for me, I have to pace myself. So being the best you you could be, other people want to know that. So if everybody tells you your eyeliner's perfect, go ahead and start a little eyeliner part of your YouTube channel or something like that, and then you can get brand deals with companies and it just can spiral into positive things.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

So, as an actor, I can take some of my hobbies. So if I love a certain makeup line or I love how it looks on me, and I can start doing little videos for TikTok or Instagram or YouTube, start doing that and putting it out there. It is helping me as an actor, and at the same time, it can help me make money.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Exactly. And if you think about some of the actors that you know and love, even for me, okay, Michael B. Jordan just won a lot of awards. With that, I was in Florida and I saw a big old sign for perfume with him. He hasn't, it has nothing to do with acting, but now you get into modeling because you're an actor and people want to know your name. It's called an NIL deal or a name and likeness deal. And a lot of times that's what comes out of positive being an actor. Yes, we love acting and we love being in the show, but after that, people know you. And the positives of the people knowing you is that you get to get these brand deals, and why not start smaller where you can? Um, there's lots of partnering companies once you know to look up brand partnerships or UGC, which stands for user-generated content. There are brands, both big and small, that are looking for this all the time.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

I love that. So you use a 3S strategy: social, sites, and scale. Can you walk my audience through what that looks like in practice for a creative entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yes. So when it comes to social, you'll have the most people possible. These people can just join you by following you on a platform that they're already on. So you're meeting them where they're at. The next step is sites. That's where you ask them to take it a step further off that social platform onto yours. And this is where I come in. I can build you out something that's kind of a bridge. I call them a bridge, but it's your DM automation. You can say comment the word, and whatever you posted about, they can comment that word. You can automatically comment back to them, and you can send them a link to your site. From there, they can click this site.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Is that like mini chat, or or can that be something different?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

So, yes, it's mini chat, but for me, my favorite is go high level. So everything that I say today, you can do on Go High Level, the communities, the lead magnets, the funnels, the automations, the DM automation. Everything can be done from Go High Level. That's my favorite. I love Go High Level for the people that are on here. I had it on one of my sites, just the link that's an affiliate link. An affiliate is somebody that just kind of is like a brand partner, but a lot of brands give it out affiliate links willy nilly. So if you already are using a brand that you love, they can give you a percentage for go high level. They give 40%. I've been able to go to Turks and Caicos with my family, and the payments coincide with the exact amount Go High Level was giving me. So I tell people all the time I went to Turks and Kecos off Go High Level, but nevertheless, that just shows how sites can do. But once you have that site, you can tell people exactly where to go and streamline them there.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

So I'm an actor. I I'm I'm loving what you're saying. I'm interested. Can I reach out to you to help me set up Go High Level? Would you be able to run my Go High Level? How does that look like for me, the actor?

SPEAKER_01 25:02

So it there's kind of different paths that we take. So there's Go High Level itself, which the software is$97. I myself have the White Way label where depending on what you get from me, we can work with either that price being a little bit lowered because I can put you under my agency because I have an agency, or you can go through Go High Level. Either way, we off rip once you join either one of those offers, have bi-weekly calls. We meet every week and we just do QA. So we help you. If you just want to use the software itself and you want to build it out, that's one option. There's AI inside of it. So if you just want to type in things and you're good with tech, boom, that's one option. If you want it a more of a done with you option, I have consultation hours and then I also have six-week cohorts. We'll walk you through how to create an offer, which means if you want to monetize things even outside of acting or with acting, there's that option. We tell you how to build out these funnels, but we kind of teach you and walk you through each part of it all the way up to launch. And we even help you launch. So that's that part. And then if you want hands-off, you don't want to do any of it, we can build out the funnel for you as a one-off project. Or if you we like you, we invite you to a retainer option where we do help manage it. We do recommend that either you still are involved with the managing and the putting out process because we don't actually go out and market it. Normally that's the ads person for that, or you would post to your regular social media, or if not, we have VAs that can help you take over even that part. So we have the full gamut between just you want the software and you want to do it yourself, or you want it fully done for you and a VA to come and manage some of the things. We have that as well.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

So as you're talking, I'm thinking mistakes. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see entrepreneurs and especially creatives make when they're trying to build funnels on their own?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Honestly, it's not as many mistakes as much as just the education behind it. You don't have to have like this big landing page and do all of these tricks and just be overly branded. A lot of people wait to have the logo and they need a domain name. For those that don't know, that's the www.yourname.com part. That's the domain name. Some people want all of that, but some people don't even know that those things exist. So there's kind of a duality in both of those things. Why don't you just go ahead if you're watching this right now and you're an actor, whatever your actor name is or your legal name, see if that domain's available online. You can go to somewhere like GoDaddy or I Love Hosting Germ, but you can get Alyssa. I mine is Fearless Funnels. I also have Curlissa, I have a lot of different domains, but now I have Alyssa at fearlessfunnels.com as my email. It's more professional than a Gmail. So once people see that you're branded, it's a little bit more professional. That's one thing. But some people, I personally am a fan of get it out. So I wouldn't wait for all of that. It's a good part to be branded. There's things like gumro.com that you can post all your stuff for free. It will help you with your newsletters. If you want to make a blog, it will email everybody for you. And that's a free platform. A mistake is not trying that at least tonight. I would look it up right now. It's 100% free. There's systemy.io, those are 100% free. That also does text. Why not at least try some of these things? I think the biggest thing that I see is people not trying. A lot of times we see people online and we're like, oh, they're doing this, but they're posting every single day. And even though you have to post every single day sometimes to get some of that online money. So I would at least start. If you want to be an actor, if you want to be an actress, there are companies right now that are looking for people that are affiliates that are doing UGC. So why wait for the bigger roles? Which I do understand. If you were looking for that huge role and you're like, I can't post anything, I get it. But if that money is getting a little funny, which sometimes it may, you know, the using this if we're doing it full-time, they're in between, and there are big brands. I mean, there's one um where you can travel if you know that you have a great audience, you can take a group of people to travel, and they will pay you for each person that you get to come on it. And I think they cap it at I think the minimum that they were putting out was like five thousand. So why you're gonna take a trip anyway? Do the things that you're already doing that fit within your lifestyle. I think that's the biggest thing. They don't think a lot of people think, oh, a funnel is in the coaching world, I have to have an offer, and then I'm doing these upsales. But the funnel is just a process that somebody goes from not knowing you, and that includes your whole life with your personal brand, too. So not having the Amazon links, not having these things is costing you money. These people are gonna buy it anyway, might as well put it in front of their face.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Now, when you say the Amazon links, are you talking about uh signing up to be an affiliate for Amazon because you're using certain products all the time? You can run it by Amazon, have the link in the video or underneath the video in the description, and then whoever clicks that link because they buy something, you'll get a percentage.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Correct. And it's very simple. Like, for example, in some of the niches that I'm in, a lot of people wear hair pieces. This is my hair. Well, when they wear the hair pieces, a lot of people actually will say, Hey, today I got my hair from XYZ. If you click the link below, you'll see where you can get that. The same a lot of Amazon companies do that. You can actually reach out to these companies. One, there's two ways to do it. The way that you well three, there's the official affiliate, there's the Amazon Creator where they'll actually give you the percentage, and then you can reach out to the brands, and the brands will give you the product for free. Some of them will just do it for a review, a regular review that you can just put on Amazon. Some of them want a full YouTube video where they'll pay you. There's different options. So for me, I have an my favorites list. I've had six people buy the iPad that I use because when I use it, it's just like so little, and I can take it with me places, and it has a magic keyboard, but my full setup was around 1300. Six people, four percent, it adds up. So when I saw that, I was like, I might as well just have the affiliate link. So if anybody sees it anywhere else, now I have it. Again, it's more of being prepared. The top again mistake is people aren't prepared and they're not trying these things. When again, for me, it's a little bit more simple because I will go get that free thing, I will go use the free item or the software, and a lot of it is the software. Once you have a site like again, Gumroad, which is a hundred percent free, it's the easiest one to do because you can also monetize shows and podcasts on Gumroad where people can lock up their content, and I think that's the number one thing, either not having a free avenue or being able to lock up. Um, I talked about a lot of number one things in here, but when we add them all together, it's a pretty good list. So I hope that answered that question.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

So let's go to Gumroad right now. You were discussing that you can get it for free or locking it up. What does that mean to lock it up?

SPEAKER_01 32:13

So, for example, let's say my name is Alyssa, I'm an actress and I'm looking for different roles. But while I've been looking for roles, I've been applying online and I've been doing some of my you know back end work. What are they called when you apply for acting gigs?

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Extra work.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yes. So while I'm doing extra, they didn't have me sign an official contact. Now I'm actually filming on one of my favorite shows that all of my fans love too. I told them I was gonna be on there. So instead of saying, hey, let me just post this to my Instagram story, I might post a little sneak preview, and instead, I'm gonna put a link on there, and on that link it's gonna go to Gumroad. Once they go there, maybe I'll have a fully edited vlog that is now a dollar. Or I have a community where they can see everything, they pay for the community monthly, ten dollars. Once I have 10 fans, that's$100 a month. Once I do that for 12 months, now I've made over a thousand dollars a year by doing the same thing that I did for free. So that's kind of that process on Gumroad. Once you sign up, you can monetize a lot of things, but a lot of things you can leave for free. So again, once you collect these emails and you say, Hey, I have this newsletter where you get to see all the projects I'm working on, or some of my upcoming events, or what have you, it's just a platform where you can either have your stuff for free, where again you're collecting the name, number, email, or you can what I said lock it up and make sure that it's a paid platform. And once you have a payment processor like Stripe or Square or Gumroad does have their own where you just connect your bank account, all of a sudden you're making money every single month doing the same thing you're already doing. It's the same videos, you're just locking.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

With uh monetizing on Gumroad, how much of a percentage do they take once you do start making money?

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Good question. So with Gumroad, they ask for 10%. So with the other platforms, you pay for it. Like again, I said uh go high level is$97 a month. Gumroad is free, but when they you give you get your money, if you made the hundred dollars, you're only getting$90. So that's a little bit of a caveat to think about. Um, if you do want it to be 100% free, go ahead and buy your own server, code it all out. It's a little bit more of a complicated process, but again, just starting out, I would definitely recommend trying Gumroad. Trying, I also use Jot Form a lot because Jot Form does really good with the emails. But if you're looking for more of that community, I would look into more of Thumbroad.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Okay, so you offer both the done for you and the DIY options. How does someone know which route is right for them?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

So for me, I have a lot of free stuff. So I just had a free class that Miss Lydia came on for a while, and some of that gets one, you don't know me, and then two, a little bit about my process. So if I'm going through it and I've been talking about all these softwares and you're already like, whoa, slow down. Maybe it's something to think about getting done for you instead of trying it yourself. Again, because I am so transparent, I told you all the software. If you never want to talk to me, you could run off and go do everything I'm telling you. And now it's 2026, you can use the AI. I'm not forcing people to come to me. But if you know you want a smooth process, if you know you want a proven process, and if you know you want me to hand it to you, and we do can deliver it with video so that people can do it themselves, maintain it themselves, or hand it to their team, or if they're hiring one of our BAs to do. But all in all, it's kind of what you want to do. We can give you as much freedom if you want me to tell you how to do everything that's some there's a certain person that wants that, and there's another certain person that absolutely doesn't. And for you to know which one that is, I would definitely look at the soft person I'm talking about first. Maybe try the trial, see if it works out for you. And if not, I'm always here. You can come find me at Curlista on Instagram, and I'll definitely be here to help.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

So I want to talk about your your mindset because you are one of the brightest young people I know. I love when you share in Morning Meetup. For those of you who have heard us mention, Morning Meetup is a group that we belong to. We meet Monday through Friday. We're a bunch of entrepreneurs, and it is the most amazing group in the world. Just saying. You are on your game. You are like so lasered focused on what you're doing and what you're getting done, and you come off so professional. I want to know how that journey. I I know you mentioned you got into morning meetup when your your partner died, and you were looking for a mentorship. But I think it's more than mentorship in just who you are and how you deliver. You also have such a giving spirit of wanting to help people because you just mentioned about your webinar that you did that you were giving away all this information. What got you to say, you know what, I'm just gonna give value to people whether they pay me or not? How did that come about for you?

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Both of my parents are amazing people by trade. They're teachers, but they all they both have their own businesses, and my dad's been in like the food industry, my mom's had her dessert business. So together, they've put me around so many different entrepreneurs. My dad had vending machines, he has properties, he's like a million things. That's my dad. So being around all these different people, I was able to kind of see the different needs, and as I was growing up, they became more and more technological. So as I was figuring those things out, I realized how I don't always need money when I tell you the blessings that have come last year just due to me helping people out. Like I taught somebody go high level, taught their daughters, they invited me to Jamaica for several days, all inclusive. All I had to pay was like$200 for getting over there and simple stuff. All I had to do was teach them online, and they felt safe enough with me to invite me there. That same week, I had it all-inclusive went to St. Thomas. The same week, the blessings that come from just me sharing, it doesn't always have to be financial for me. And I don't always look for a return, but I like being able to see that the knowledge that I have and the things that I'm doing actually help other people. And with my parents being teachers by trade, my dad is in the special education, so being able to see that we as humans have abilities, but not everybody does. And why am I going to be on the sidelines? As we just mentioned, my friend just passed. Her mom texted me today saying that we have to get together. Her mom had other kids, there are other fine, like it's not my responsibility, but I would love for them to go on vacation with me. I would love to do these certain things, but that also takes money, which is where my drive comes from. So I know that for me, I can't chill. I have two sisters, one has a full ride, the other one is vice president of her class, and she's on the track team, and she's the best like everything. I have people that I love to take care of, and I'm a cancer, which means I love to do parties and I like to take my family on vacation for the weekend and stay an extra week once they leave. I do that all the time. This year, I actually just came home on Thursday for a speaking engagement, but I haven't been home all year. Not once. I've been out all year, and the reason is people feel safe inviting me to those spaces because I've been able to share with them. So for me, there's many benefits in keeping things out loud. I didn't learn anything by people of gatekeeping from me, and I've had lots of very important ladies along the way come and give me guidance. They've showed me the way for eat whether it's online or how to deal with multimillionaires or how to do certain things. I've had guidance, so now that I know, I'm kind of like, sound the alarm, everybody. This is exactly what it is, and this is how you do it. But I'm also a realist, so sometimes it's like people are like, Yeah, just post online and everything will be great. And then people do it and they're like, Why didn't it work for me? And I'm like, Did you have a strategy? Did we plan? Did we post every single like these are the things that people are sometimes missing? And once they tweak that, it's like, oh, we had our first hundred thousand months. Oh, I love being a part of that. When I come to your city, steak dinner on you. And when you keep doing that, then you build a great Rolodex of people. And for me, I just love it. So I just keep talking and I never shut up.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

I love it. Your courage, your adventure is contagious. There are a lot of actors out there who don't move because they're in fear and they're afraid to put themselves out there as a brand or as a business. How do you, Alyssa, Curlissa, help those clients that need to overcome that fear factor in order to be seen, in order to set up their funnels, their gumroad. What do you say to those people to help them?

SPEAKER_01 41:19

All right. So this is where I become a realist, a little bit of a statist. I love Jesus. But this is where you got to get a little deep on people, a little dark on people. So for me, when I look at numbers and I look at statistics, I take a step back. So when you look at one of your projects and you're like, oh, only a hundred people saw this film. Hold on. If a hundred people came and slapped you on your wrist, it might be broken. If a hundred people came and stepped on your shoe, it might hurt. So I kind of think of numbers in that way. So when you take a step back and you're like, everything you do has impact. Even if it's one person that has impact, and that person can be a better person for the next person, you're already doing wonderful. Now, for those people that need to get out of their way, just start by documenting it for yourself. Have you ever seen the show that's called Good Luck Charlie? They vlogged the whole thing. The whole show is the to vlog. Vlog for yourself, even call yourself Charlie. You can vlog show, hey, today I actually did this, this, and this. And when you look back, you're like, hey, I applied for three jobs, I booked two, now I have some numbers. Maybe if for every third job I applied to doesn't work and the other two do work, let's try five this time and look at these numbers. I'm a numbers girl, so that's all what funnels is about. Is once you find that key and to unlock, you'll be good. But if you need help getting out of that dark space, I always think about sometimes I was really, really, really upset when I tell you I lost three friends in one year, it was crazy. But when I had to think out back on it, for me, I know that they can't do certain things, so I have to. If you can find your why that drive whether you have a kid, even if it's just you, you know you don't want to deal with certain things. If you can make your pros and cons list, your dreams list, your bucket list. For me, I know how much money I spend a month. There's no way I can say for three days straight, I'm just not gonna post because for me, I built the life where that's what I have to do. Unfortunately, there are some people where it's like, oh, I don't want to post. It's 2026, I don't want to use AI, but think about all the people that might have a foot ahead of you because they're doing the things that you want, won't. And that's the thing that for me, I just can't deal with that. And sometimes, and I know you actors have to deal with it too. You look at who got the part and you're like, uh-uh, they are not better than me. There's no way you're telling me that it's them. And sometimes when I was looking at funnel builders, I was like, mm-mm, there's no way you're telling me that was ten thousand dollars. Okay, I have to up my price, or I have to find better clients because you can't tell me that that you have to sometimes just put the batteries in your own back, watch yourself back, become more improvement. I used to be a cheerleader, I saw the way my jumps looked, I did not like it. I ended up becoming MVP by the time I graduated because of the fact I improved. If you don't like the way that you're not booking shows, watch yourself back, figure out how you can improve. Maybe it's your personality, maybe you're not when you're going in, booking the people correctly, or telling them how they can contact you. These are the kind of things that again can set us apart. And then again, I go offline too. So get in the room, make sure you shake hands with people. I do take it a step further where I have something. Oh, for actors, this could be the ticket to get you something. I don't know. If you win or it works for you, or you give it a booked, my Instagram, Carlissa, please come give me a steak dinner or some chat. But listen, there's something called an NFC chip. You can put it in your phone. You can put it, I put them in my nails, and once you have your full contacts, you can tap it on somebody else's phone, and it'll have all the information. I've made so many deals because I had some cool funky nails. We're short right now because this traveling broke my nails. But sometimes I put a chip in there and then I can tap my nail on somebody's stuff, and I'm like, oh my gosh, your information's in there. And I'm like, Yes, now you can book me, and you'll always remember the girl that had tech in her nails. So imagine if your portfolio was in your nails, or for your guys and a wristwatch, or if you're in between, if you can figure it out, I don't know. But just think about being different. That's all it is, is taking tech into the real world. I also have meta glasses for those of you that do vlog, meta glasses, but figuring out that way to come from just inside, even for those of you that don't want to do any of the content, the meta glasses is the easiest thing possible because you just say, Hey, meta, record, and it's done.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Okay, Calissa. So the new thing is the Loki. Yes, the Loki girl, the Loki. So uh if you don't want to wear the meta glasses, you just put this over your uh use this as a necklace, and you can record on that. Technology is what we need.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

No, that's good because even if you have that, the follow up that you can do. Oh, I met whoever on my run, but I don't remember their name. Let's go do the follow up, let's run it back, run it back real quick. Um, but those things are so important. Just being as prepared as possible, I would say for those people that just can't get out of their shell, they're not worried about it yet, there's gonna come. A time where you're like, oh, I remember that social media was so easy back then. Now after da da. So we might as well get in now.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

So talk to me about the thing you put in your nail because I want to try it.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

An NFC chip. And you can get them from Amazon. They're like$20. Yeah, I got mine in a six-pack, and it's really small. And once you can program it, um, I program it with the app on my phone. If you just type in the same letters I just told you, NFC chip, you learn how to program them. And then you can program it to anything, like your Wi-Fi, you can program it to your phone number. I've even programmed it to my Cash App one time. Who knows? You don't know. Maybe it's your birthday and you want to program it. So that's what I'm saying. The more you can think, the more you can monetize. I've even had clients do birthday little events, and that's how they make money. Hey, I'm not here to stop you, I'm here to help you monetize in any way possible, and that's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

So, how can people find you to help them with their funnels, with their tech setup? How can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Yeah, so you can follow me everywhere at Curlissa. I think the only thing that's different is Twitter has two A's. Everywhere is Curlissa. My actual business page is Fearless Funnels. If you want to see some of my client testimonials, some of our work, but you can find us on YouTube as well with Fearless Funnels. It's fairly new. And then Curlissa, if you ever want to see my old stuff, even down to the cheer stuff that I was mentioning, it's all there.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

I love it. And I love you. I'm so grateful for you. I'm grateful for your spirit, your energy, your sense of adventure and wonderment. It's so infectious. I just want to say thank you. Thank you, Alyssa. Carlissa, we love you. I'm so grateful to you. I can't wait to talk to you about Go High Level Girl.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Yes, thank you for following me on your platform. And if you come from Miss Lydia, make sure you tell me so I can give her some credit as well. Okay. She's one of our affiliates as well. And if you come from over there, I'll make sure to follow you back. So let me know. Thank you so much for having me, Miss Lydia Nicole.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

Who says you can't learn from young people? Oh my God, I learned so much from Melissa. She is fire. Well, that is all the time I have for you today on Acting Smarter Now. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments of what you took away from this interview. And buy me a coffee to help this channel. And like, subscribe, and share this video with friends you think could use it so they can make some money. And don't go anywhere because we got another great interview coming up right now.